Library Transmission: The video poetics of Pratibha Parmar

In that transient moment she traversed the space - Pratibha Parmar

The early video works of London-based filmmaker, artist, theorist, independent publisher, journalist and activist Pratibha Parmar constitute an ongoing intervention in the poetics of sound, image, voice, music, noise, text and mise-en-scene that dramatise the autonomous, coalitional and movement politics of black, Asian, feminist, queer, diasporic presence. Emergence, Parmar’s first work (1986), assembles the poetry of Mei Ling Jin and Audre Lorde with the art practice of Mona Hatoum and Sutapa Biswas in an audiovisual concert of non-aligned feminisms. Sari Red (1988) is an investigation, a eulogy and a memorial to Kalbinder Kaur Hayre, a young woman murdered by white racists in England in 1985. Khush (1991) speaks of the promise, the possibilities and the problematics of queer-of-colour life and love in the UK and the US. 

Taken together, these works provide a series of insights into the aesthetic sociality of Pratibha Parmar that played a critical role in the Black British transformation of the history and the future of British moving image. The screening of Emergence (20 mins), Sari Red (11 mins) and Khush (24 mins) will be followed by a conversation between Pratibha Parmar and The Otolith Collective of Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun.   

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Doors open at 5.30pm; event starts at 6pm.

Image credit: still from Khush, 1991, Pratibha Parmar